MASTERPIECE LONDON

Although very different in appearance (one makes highly coloured abstract paintings on glass, the other monochromatic sculpture in white marble) the work of these two Edinburgh based artists shares a methodology in working with discarded, or in some way overlooked, materials.

Neither artist makes work that is explicitly addressing climate or environmental concerns, and yet both are deep-rooted in a practice that seeks to recycle and reclaim their materials in order to make new works which achieve the greatest possible impact with the smallest possible footprint.

In Kevin Harman’s case this means using unwanted household paints, mis-tinted or past expiry, sent by the palette load to his studio from paint companies across Scotland, and re-cycled double-glazing window units from local glass companies. The toughened glass panels of the salvaged units are split apart, and paint is poured, dripped and layered onto the inside surfaces, before being resealed. This post- industrial starting point belies the finished form in which luminous and delicate images seem to connect to nature in a fundamental way – either to the microcosm of the natural word in close-up, or the macro of the earth viewed from space. They connect too to places in art history where nature and abstraction collide (especially perhaps to Turner’s seascapes or Monet’s waterlilies) despite their origin is in the urban environment of 21st century Glasgow.

Jonathan Owen is best known for his interventions into ‘found’ antique sculptures; 18th and 19th century marble statuary that has become somehow defunct or too easily ignored. In a sense Owen has one foot in the past and one in the present day, rescuing these original sculptures from invisibility by re-carving them into entirely contemporary objects - disjointed, destabilised versions of their former selves. It offers a way of working that seems especially relevant on the present moment, as the conversation around public monuments is so vigorously re-considered and re-phrased to question ideas of permanence and power–attributes so often associated with the original sculptures that are his favoured raw material.